The present invention relates to a truck for handling pallets.
In particular, the present invention relates to a lift truck for handling pallets, of the type comprising a motorized chassis provided with an open cavity, a fork, a slider supporting the fork and coupled to the chassis to move said fork longitudinally with respect to the chassis between a retracted position inside the cavity and an extracted position outside said cavity, and bumper means which at least partially surround the chassis and comprise a portion for closing the open end of the cavity.
Known lift trucks of the above described type have some drawbacks which are mainly due to the presence of said bumper portion arranged so as to close the cavity normally accommodating the fork when it is inactive.
The fork, in order to reach a normal pickup/depositing position below a pallet starting from its normal inactive retracted position, must in fact rise above said bumper portion, move longitudinally into its extracted position, move downward again outside said bumper portion until it reaches a lowered position below the flat surface of the pallet to be picked up, and then move longitudinally, together with the entire truck, to insert itself beneath the pallet.
To summarize, therefore, during a pickup operation the truck cannot arrange itself directly at the side of the pallet to be picked up but must leave, between itself and the pallet, a distance, not always available, which must be sufficient to allow the fork to reach its above mentioned lowered position.
During its return stroke, the loaded fork performs the above described movement sequence in reverse, and is forced to lift the pallet above said bumper portion starting from its above described lowered position, which is equivalent to a maximum range of said fork. In this manner, the truck is subjected to overturning moments such as to require the use of heavy counterweights.